The von Kármán Lecture Series: 2018

Planning Cassini’s Grand Finale: A Retrospective

March 22 & 23

Mission planning is a core strength of JPL engineering, along with deep space communications and navigation. This month’s talk, by Cassini mission planner Erick Sturm, will provide a look back at the various scenarios and contingency plans the Cassini team made as they steered the spacecraft into unexplored space during its 2017 Grand Finale. Sturm will discuss how the possible scenarios -- some of which could have been mission-ending -- compared to the mission as it was actually flown, along with some science highlights from the finale.